Several other local plastic surgery centers and spas also offer microneedling, including the plastic surgery department at the University of Kansas Hospital.

“It’s designed to increase collagen and improve the quality of skin,” says Richard A. Korentager, a plastic surgeon who specializes in burn surgery and wound care at the hospital. “We also use it to help get certain products more deeply into the skin like antioxidants and vitamin C. The goal is to smooth out areas where there’s scars, wrinkles and it helps with pore size. It’s a safe office-based procedure.”

Microneedling can treat a range of skin issues, so people are having it done for various reasons.

“I have people anywhere from their late teens with acne scarring to women in their 40s and beyond using it as an anti-aging treatment,” Wahrman says. “I am treating some stretch marks on the abdomen from pregnancy and have a couple of patients doing it for crepe-y skin on their arms and knees. It’s a great treatment; it just targets so many areas, which is what makes it so popular.”

Read the full article at www.chicagotribune.com.